


The Beginning is in the Death

by SalParadiseLost



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Because he's still walking and talking so it doesn't count, Brodinsons, But I won't call it a major character death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Even though he calls Thor an idiot while being a good bro, Gen, Getting back to the living world, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Posting fics at 2am, Recovery, Technically Loki is dead in this fic, This is my life now, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Valhalla, and like is death something that ever sticks when it comes to Loki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25302253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost
Summary: Loki wakes up in Valhalla with no idea how he died or why someone like him even deserves to be there. But after an accident causes Thor to come crashing into his afterlife, Loki must address the mistakes he made in his lifetime while also fighting to bring Thor back to the living world.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Odin (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	The Beginning is in the Death

Loki breathed in on his third day of being dead and was once again startled by how much the afterlife felt like living. His breath caught in his throat and his heart stuttered. He flexed his fingers against his palms and pressed his nails into his skin until there was a small, sharp pain. He was relieved to say that everything was similar as it had been when he was living. He had the same number of fingers and toes, the same pattern of freckles, the same too pale skin that always burned and never tanned. (He thanked the Norns that his glamour held even in death)

If it wasn’t for the yawning scar right over his heart and the stuttered beating of his torn-in-two heart, he wouldn’t have thought he had been killed at all.

Yet, he knew he must be dead. Why else would he have sunken into a pit of nothingness, only to wake up again a in simulacrum of Asgard’s shining halls. He wasn’t overly surprised about being dead. Enough people had the desire to slip a knife between his ribs, he guessed one of them must have succeeded. He didn’t expect it to be so soon. He thought he had a couple more years at least.

No, the most shocking thing wasn’t that she was dead, but that he had somehow ended up in Valhalla.

He wouldn’t put undue accolades upon himself. He wasn’t heroic. He didn’t have the annoying penchant towards doing the right thing like his brother had. Hell, he wasn’t even an Asgardian, he only lived in one’s skin.

He knew himself. He knew that he was secretly a monster, destined for death by its own chaotic nature.

So, no, it wasn’t surprising that he had died. What was a mystery was that his final act had been great enough to tip him into Valhalla.

Loki furrowed his brows, already feeling a headache coming on. He had been chasing his tail trying to figure out how he ended up in Valhalla. He had only been here for three days and he had tried asking the guards about the nature of this place, but each were so frustratingly cryptic. If one of his questions did get answered, they were met with vague replies that left him nowhere closer to the truth.

The effect was positively infuriating, leaving him as angry towards the guards as he had been they stopped one of his schemes during life. Briefly he wondered if he could set a small bit of mischief to retaliate, though maybe that would be too petty.

“Loki, dearheart, are you getting lost in your own head again?” A voice came from right behind him and he startled, whipping around to face it. Instantly, he felt his throat begin to close and the slight prick of tears. No, he couldn’t. Not now. Not after he had spent nearly three days, crying almost every time he saw her.

His mother was as beautiful in death as she was in life.

Loki straighten his body, drawing up to his full height and trying to appear unbothered by her appearance. He fought to relax his shoulders and erase any signs of tension from his body. But just as he had struggled to hide his feelings from his mother in life, he couldn’t quite do it in death. So instead, he shoved his thoughts into the back of his mind, far away from where they could worry his mother.

When he had last saw her in life, she had been dead. Thrown on the ground, brought down in a way that a queen should have never been. Her beautiful dress was soaked in blood, and the smell of death permeated the air. He had knelt beside and tried so hard to do anything, something to fix this. But the blood just kept oozing, her body grew colder, and the permanence of her death settled into his heart like a rock sinking to the bottom of a lake. His mind was screaming at him. Telling him that he could have done something. He should have stopped it.

Valhalla was wrong for them both, but only because she deserved something better and he deserved something far worse.

“You know me, Mother,” he said with a chuckle, “I always manage to get myself into places I shouldn’t be.”

Frigga frowned and walked around him, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. He could feel her fingers through his clothes, warm and firm as ever. She even had the royal rings, delicate bands of metal that graced the hands of all of Asgard’s queens. When she had died, Loki had stolen one right off her finger in a childish impulse to keep a piece of his mother for himself. He didn’t know what became of the ring after his own death.

His mother stood next to him, hands on the shoulders, in a gesture so familiar that if he closed his eyes, he could almost fool himself that he was back in his childhood. Back when his only worry was the next spell he was about to tackle, back when his father and his mother were the pillars of his world, back when his brother spoke his name full of affection and nothing more. The world had seemed to turn in a less complicated universe back then.

If he was living, he would have shrugged his mother’s hands off his shoulders and turned away with a scoff. He didn’t seem to have the fight in him now though, not when everything about this place made him feel like a boat being tossed between waves.

“You are doing it again,” she said, her voice managing to jolt him. He hadn’t even realised that he had closed his eyes.

She was looking at him keenly and her lips were pursed in slight concern. He almost chuckled. He had gotten this look so many times as a child and it still made him want to squirm.

“I don’t mean to,” he admitted sheepishly, “you know my mind. It’s a slippery thing and it wanders even when I wish it didn’t.”  
His mother’s gaze sharpened, though, “Perhaps, as a child it did, but I know now it only wanders when you are trying to solve life’s great mysteries.”

He had to keep himself from barking a laugh. Would you even call it one of life’s mysteries when they were in the dimension of the dead?  
Frigga’s brows softened in concern. “Loki, tell me, what darkens your thoughts so?” Apparently, even in death, he couldn’t stop worrying his mother.

He stayed silent, unsure of how to answer her question.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have an answer, it was that he had too many.

He had woken up in Valhalla with a scar over his ragged heart and his memories as hazy as fog.

He knew he had been here for three days but how long had he been dead before that?

A shudder ran through him as he admitted the words to himself.

He was _dead_ , and yet he didn’t feel like it. His consciousness still roared within him. His breath still caught in his chest. His heart still fluttered against his ribcage like a bird in a cage. Everything about his body screamed _not dead_ but he was dead. He was. Everything was _wrong_ about it.

And a small but persistent part of him, just wished that his brother would come and bring him back home. To his real home.

Didn’t being dead entitle him to more of a sense of peace?

Should he be able to have an afterlife that didn’t seem so terribly _wrong?_

Unless, there must have been a mistake.

His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he finally admitted the dark thing that had been lurking in the back of his head for the last few days.

_What if being placed here was a mistake?_

He knew he had never been meant for Valhalla. It was impossible for a person like him, which meant that he must have tricked his way into it somehow. It should be an inconceivable feat, but Loki knew that he had a habit of doing everything that shouldn’t be done.

He just didn’t know how he would have snuck his way in. What he did know though was that whatever he did would have consequences. It didn’t matter that he didn’t remember what horrible, cosmic shifting thing he had done, but it would surely catch up to him. The universe always got its justice when it came to Loki and he feared what that would mean in the future.

For now, though, it meant he was living in Valhalla with a target on his back, a hunted animal in death just as he was in life.

And yet, he spent every day hoping that the illusion wouldn’t shatter around him. He was just so tired. He was so tired from running away from his own mistakes and being chased by the things that were meant to ease his mind. He was a fool for thinking that death would have provided some comfort.

His mother’s palms squeezed his shoulders and he fought to give her a soft smile. Inside him, he was practically shaking, a huge knot of nerves and stress. Serenely, she glittered in the warm afternoon light.

“Nothing is wrong, mother, I will do my best to put my thoughts behind me.” Maybe he didn’t deserve to be here, but also, maybe if he kept up his best behaviour, the realm wouldn’t find a reason to make him leave.  
Frigga moved from her position behind him to begin moving towards the door. “Come Loki, I think the two of us need to go on a little walk. Fresh air could do us both some good.”

Wordlessly, he followed, trailing after his mother like he had when he was a child.

Asgard looked as golden as ever, especially dappled in the late afternoon light. In his lifetime, Loki had always thought that the extravagance gave the halls an overly ostentatious look. They were the rulers of the Nine Realms, everyone knew that, they didn’t need to gold leaf every inch of their palace to prove it.

Of course, just because he thought the gold was gaudy, he didn’t mean he missed the powerful symbol it portrayed. He looked at a tapestry that displayed the symbol of the royal family, an intricate bunch of golden knotwork that became a serpent twisted onto a sword. He grimaced slightly and turned his head back forward. His father was always very fond of his symbols.

The halls around him were far from quiet and they bustled with various servants, messengers and guards, who dipped their heads as the queen and the prince passed. Loki wasn’t even sure what the souls did all day to be honest. It wasn’t as if there was an actual kingdom to keep running, unless, of course, his Valhalla extended past the city?

Did this dimension contain other realms inside it? Would he even be able to travel past the city walls if he tried? Just another question to add to his list. He held back a sigh, though saw his mother looking at him from the corner of his eye. Then it occurred to him, perhaps she would be more helpful that the guards.

“Mother, I was thinking of visiting Vanaheim in a couple weeks, will you not join me?” he said carefully, gauging her reaction to the name of their sister realm.

Frigga met his eyes briefly, before giving a quick shake of her head. “That would be lovely, dear, although I’m afraid I can’t spend much time away from the palace. Not with your father away and all.”

  
Loki perked and gave his mother a quick side glance. That was the first time she had mentioned his father since he’d been here, though it was as vague as any of the other details in Valhalla.

“Yes, of course,” he said, “I had forgotten about Father’s leave. Do you not have a prediction of when he might return?” He kept his eyes firmly in front of him and his tone light. His mother though didn’t seem startled by the questions at all.

“I know not, but it is not a queen’s place to question where the king feels he is most needed.”

He hummed in agreement, putting his hands behind his back. “Forgive me, Mother, I seem to be forgetful, where did he say that he was going again?”

She stopped, but kept her body forward while gently rubbed her palms together. She had taught him everything he knew about reading the tells of people. It was a useful skill for a Queen, a role that’s often outshined by her regal husband. She had taught it to Loki when she realised he was similarly getting talked over in favour of his brother and it proved invaluable to Loki’s manoeuvring of the court system. Despite her skill in the art of reading people though, Loki knew she had a few tells herself that she never managed to quite hide from him. “He didn’t say,” she kept her voice light, but the rubbing at her palms got a little quicker, “only that he was very much needed. Which again, I’ll remind you, is not within my role to question”

She met his eyes, her gaze getting steelier. “Neither is it within prince’s station.”

Frigga began walking again, calm and collected, looking every inch a queen. Loki didn’t move, standing his ground.

“So, is it also not a son’s place to ask when his father might be back?” He quipped back, his voice echoing through the empty hall. The question forced her to stop and she met his gaze evenly. The only crack in her demeanour was the slight clench in her jaw and her rubbing palms.

“Loki, you know better than to pit your king’s duties as a royal against his duties as a father. I know that you get lonely wandering these halls by yourself, but trust that he will return.”

 _Return_ , that was an interesting way to talk about his father’s eventual death. The word implied that he had been here before, though Loki could not remember an instance where his father left the living to go to Valhalla and returned. Perhaps the Odinsleep made the veils between the dimensions thinner? He needed more information, something that his Mother seemed stubbornly against giving,

“Of course, I was being petulant,” he dipped his head, and heard her mother begin to walk again “But perhaps, you’ll allow me another question?”

She sighed, though a small smile flitted across her lips, “I have never been able to keep you from asking questions, dearheart, you and I both know that.”

Loki didn’t have to fake the smile he gave back. “No, you haven’t.” He walked towards her, gently offering his arm to her to take so they could walk side-by-side. “Do not worry, though, I will not inquire further about Father’s whereabouts. I only ask if Thor will accompany him back when he returns?”

There was a stutter in his Queen’s steps and Loki craned his head down. His mother was giving him a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?”

“Oh did Thor wander in a different direction than Father? I do hope he didn’t go off on one of his conquests alone without telling me. After all, I am the one to save his royal hide more often than not.”

His mother’s expression didn’t get any less confused, and Loki scrambled to figure out why. Had he said something wrong? He hadn’t said anything abnormal compared to their living chats.

Then a dark, ugly feeling sank in his stomach. Had he somehow let her know that he didn’t belong in Valhalla?

“Mother?” he questioned, almost fearing the answer he would get.

She didn’t seem alarmed in any way, just confused. After a pause, she finally asked her own question.

“Who is Thor?”

Everything in Loki came to a screeching halt.

_Who is Thor?  
_

No, that couldn’t be. That wasn’t possible. How could his mother not know her own son? More than that, how could she not know her actual, blood-related son.

“Thor, my brother.” Loki ventured, not letting his eyes leave his mother’s face. He searched for some sign of emotion, recognition, anything.

“Surely, Mother, you must know Thor? He was the crown prince? He is your first-born son.”

She took a step forward and her expression shifted a bit from confused to worried.

“Loki, are you feeling alright? I thought you’ve been acting strangely these last couple days.” His mother grasped his arm and put a hand to his forehead.

“I- what?” he sputtered, barely keeping his indignation back.

“Loki, you are the crown prince. The only prince. I had wished to give you a brother, but I could not.”

He looked his mother and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. None of this made any sense. How could his mother remember Odin, but not Thor? Thor was their first born. The golden child. Everything good and valued in Asgard bundled up into one person.

And another thing occurred to him.

“Mother, am I adopted?”

He expected many things. He expected her to grimace or close off or stop looking at him in the eye because he had just reminded her he was a monster.

Instead, she just laughed.

“Now, Loki, I know that you are jesting.” She tapped his shoulder, worry sliding away from her face. She smiled at him and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You have always been my tricky, darling boy, but please do not test my heart so. I can’t keep up with your jokes as well as I used to.”

“Of course, Mother, I was only teasing.” He knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. The words sounded hollow in his own ears, though, he could hardly hear them over the uneven pounding of his heart in his ears.

Beyond him, he heard his mother say that she was expecting him for dinner. He believed that he might have muttered an affirmative, but he wasn’t sure of his own voice anymore. He watched her walk away, her golden dress shimmering behind her like a river. It was getting late. The shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to eat her as she disappeared into another hallway.

Turning, he glanced around the rest of the hall. It was empty. Not even the ghosts were there. He silently thanked the Norns and put up a quick invisibility spell with a shaking breath.

For one small moment, he allowed himself to panic.

He wasn’t ready for this.

He wasn’t ready to be here and to see his dead mother and to be in this strange not-Asgard. Most of all, he wasn’t ready to be _dead._

Loki tried to keep his shaking heart calm, but the traitorous organ only beat faster. The scar over it ached with a memory he didn’t have. He stared at the growing shadows, watching their darkness bleed on the floor and stretch up to his feet.

He was so hopeless. He was hopeless in life, but at least then he had knew who he was. He was the lesser prince, the shadow to Thor’s sun, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the inevitable villain. That was him, that was his destiny.

And now, everything had been ripped away to leave him so unmistakably _fucked._

He didn’t want this. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t live in this damn mirror world where everything was so wrong and inverted.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm the roaring in the back of his head.

This all reminded him too much of **that** place. The Void that stretched below him endlessly as he fell. He had screamed until his throat was raw and the words were meaningless. He had begged for someone to come, for anyone to come, and he got his wish.

Why couldn’t the universe had let him die that time? Before the Other happened and he was broken and twisted into something he didn’t even recognise himself. Before he had become something not even worthy of a prison cell, let alone Valhalla.

His mind was preying upon itself, lunging at its own tail like a venomous snake in the dark, scared of his own shadow. Maybe this was actual madness? Maybe his mind had finally broken and this place was the result of it? It wouldn’t be that surprising. He had always known he was fated to be a shattered thing, so why not be a creature trapped in his own insanity.

A small part of him had believed that maybe the Norns wouldn’t be so cruel to him

Loki gave a shaky sigh and pinched between his brows.

He needed to collect himself.

There was a solution. There was always a solution and Loki was always the person to find it, no matter how illusive it might seem.

This wasn’t so different from life, he tried to tell himself, all he needed to do was play his part. Right now, the roles may have changed but Loki’s duty to them hadn’t swayed. He was a shapeshifter, all he needed to do was to make sure he turned himself into who his Mother thought him to be.

Maybe then he could do a little better than he had in life and actually find some happiness in this place.

He stood up and shook the invisibility spell off of himself. His seidr flowed easily, which was perhaps the one blessing of this afterlife. Asgard lived in discomfort with the magical arts, and people naturally feared what they did not know. Because of that, he had gotten sickeningly used to his talents being shoved to the back, or worse, being bound and reduced. When he had his full powers, he was (no, _had been_ ) the greatest sorcerer in the Nine Realms, but the title had never held much meaning because of their fear. People saw what he could do, and people were wary of him in a way that they had never been to Thor.

Loki guessed he didn’t need to worry about the comparison too much anymore though. 

He startled as the thought dawned on him and began to feel like his world was slipping out from under him once more.

He was no longer Thor’s brother. _You were never his brother_ , a treacherous voice inside him spat, and he shook his head as if he could physically get the thought out of him.

Sadness came rushing into him, suddenly and cold like water running down his spine. It yawned in him, feeling so startlingly like loss that Loki had to keep himself from collapsing.

He had never admitted it to himself and if he was living, he would still not admit it to himself, but he felt his already torn-in-two heart break.

Despite all his brother’s oafish and stupid and inexplicitly endearing ways, Loki had loved him. He had thought of him as his brother no matter how many times he had spat the opposite into Thor’s face. Without even realising it, Thor had been a pillar to Loki’s world, and now to think that he was gone…

Isn’t it ironic? That the dead man would mourn the living.

Loki’s small grasp on reality just seemed to fray even more and he had to choke down the panic that was threatening to rise up again. No, he couldn’t allow two breakdowns in the same hour. He was stronger than this. If he had managed to suppress the Void, he could also manage to shove these emotions into the small, black box of his mind.

But the thoughts of Thor just kept rising up, washing over him like an unstoppable wave. Loving Thor was like that, as relentless as a storm and just as inundating. It was silently standing next to each other, fighting until they were panting and sore, sneaking into each other’s rooms in the small hours of the morning.

Loki would never admit it, but he felt braver around Thor. His brother always was and always would be the golden child and Loki had an unspoken hope that is he stood close enough some of that gold could rub off on him too.

It had never worked, though it did force him to work harder on his own abilities to make them shine. He certainly would have never put in as many hours in the Training Grounds if it wasn’t for Thor’s influence. Regardless of how many times he hissed at Thor, the many times he had raved against him and wished him ill, Loki had never actually wanted his brother simply to be erased.

The thought of it was just one more sickening factor that made this realm so utterly _wrong._ It wasn’t he true desire, it was just a perversion of one of his many failings. A reminder that also twisted in the knife.

He had never wanted this.

 _Though had he?_ The tiny, treacherous voice said.

Could this be? Could this be a reality of his own making? A manifestation of some dark desire that Loki himself didn’t even know that he had. He didn’t want to think about it too much, the possible truth of it scared him too much.

Okay, Loki, he said to himself, running a hand through his hair. There were two options to this.

One: The inhabitants of Valhalla didn’t remember the living. Of course, that didn’t explain how Frigga remembered Odin (or where he could possibly be returning from) or how he himself remembered Thor. Though, perhaps, if he truly was a cuckoo in the Valhalla nest, then his sneaking into this realm could have retained him his memories.

Option number two: This wasn’t Valhalla, and only a product of his own insanity created to torture him. This was the theory he didn’t want to think about. It only filled him with a sense of helplessness, which probably meant that the punishment was working.

He groaned and put his head in his hands.

He wasn’t ready for this. He was so hopelessly and impossibly not meant to be here.

With a heave of his muscles, he began walking again, not really paying much attention to where he was going. Moving kept his mind from wandering, and if he let it wander too much it would only bring him back to that darkness.

No, he must keep moving forward.

And he didn’t admit to himself that the dead didn’t have much of a future to move to.

*****

Without realising it, his feet brought him to Thor’s bedroom. He hadn’t been here since he had died, mostly because he didn’t see a need to. Thor was most definitely still alive and going into the room would have only brought up memories like ghosts. Despite his self-deprecating tendencies, Loki wasn’t keen on hurting himself with memories of his stolen life also.

But now, with the possibility of living in a world completely devoid of Thor hanging over his head, all Loki wanted was proof. Proof that he wasn’t crazy. Proof that the hazy memory he had were still, in fact, memories. Proof that he was still someone’s brother.

The door stood imposing in front of him, looking like much more than simple wood. Gently, he placed his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t usually use it to come in, more often than not he just magicked his brother’s door open as he burst inside. Partially because it was easier, partially because it never failed to make Thor startle just a bit. But now, opening the door with his hand seemed strangely righter and a little more fitting.

As he pushed open the door, it seemed heavier than it could possibly be. He stepped inside and felt a bit of what was keeping him together begin to crumble.

It was empty. Completely empty, except for the fireplace by the wall and a bed with a sheet on top of it to keep it from gathering dust.

Loki sank to his knees without realising it. No, it wasn’t right, none of this was right.

With a sudden burst of magic, Loki whipped an illusion into existence, bringing the room back into its former glory. The walls flourished with tapestries. The fireplace crackled to life, creating the warm glow Loki always associated with his brother. Bookshelves appeared and were filled with the various trinkets that Thor had collected through his many travels and quests.

Instantly, he felt himself begin to relax. It was just one piece back of something he would never see again. He was a coward. He was a coward to find comfort in the past instead of facing his future head on. But he was so tired of having to run whether it was away or towards something.

All he wanted was to go home and, as much as he never wanted to admit it to himself, home was his brother.

He choked down something that felt suspiciously like a sob. He never allowed himself to be this vulnerable in his life, but now death made being seen as strong so pointless. What was the use if his brother wasn’t here anyways?

Loki laid on his back looking up at the familiar ceiling. The light from the fire cast weird shadows over the intricate design work that had been painted above him. The scene showed a depiction of Yggdrasil and her many branches that reached into the Nine Realms. Loki had once been able to walk those branches, but he knew their paths didn’t carry into the dimension of death. Many sorcerers had tried to walk between the lands of the living and the dead, and they had all failed, more than often getting trapped between the dimensions and fated to wander nothingness forever.

Theoretically, it was possible. Seidr flowed between the dimensions easily because they were inevitably connected to each other. With great amount of seidr, a sorcerer could even communicate between the dimensions.

The thought stopped him in his tracks, and he sat up instantly.

A skilled sorcerer could transfer seidr between the dimensions of the living and the dead. He almost laughed; how could he have not thought of it before. It wasn’t an often used skill because many magic users found it rather pointless. An aimless shift of seidr through a dimension was rather like shooting an arrow into the dark, pointless without a target.

But Loki had a target. He and his brother were connected in more ways than one because long ago Loki had tied their seidrs together. Originally, it was just a failsafe, something that he could call upon in the future if he really needed his brother to come get him. (He had tugged on it as he fell. He had pulled and jerked until the magic between them was frayed with overuse. His brother never came. Had his brother even acknowledged that he was still alive?)

He also taught Thor how to call upon it, though the bumbling troll could do little more with the seidr than give it a slight tug. And yet, every time he felt his brother so much as bump the thread of seidr that connected him, he came.

His magic was still strong, even in death, and that thread of the seidr between them seemed to remain in place despite everything.

Perhaps, perhaps if he…

He tried to keep too much hope from rising within him as he sent a burst of seidr along the thread. He didn’t even know if the magic would travel that far between the dimensions.

He didn’t even know if Thor would want to receive a message from him.

But he couldn’t tamp down that part of him that so desperately wished that he would.

Loki waited. He waited until that piece of hope in him began to stutter and fall. Then, just as he was about to lift himself off of the wooden floor, he felt the thread of seidr shift in response.

It was small, barely there, like the wind swaying a leaf on a tree, but the suddenness of it almost made Loki cry. He had been so lost and alone here, and feeling that small tug was like seeing a guiding light in the dark.

He sent another flash of seidr over, more focused this time and after a few moments, a slightly stronger jerk came back to him.

He could cry, but he settled on laughing. He laughed and laughed. The sound came out of him in bursts and became edged with a sob, but he didn’t care anymore. His brother was there, on the other edge of the seidr. Yes, there was the gaping dimensions of the living and the dead between them, but at least he was real.

Loki poured more magic into the connection, more than he ever had before, just to keep feeling his brother there with him.

They kept exchanging tugs at the seidr until the exhaustion caught up to him and Loki fell into his first peaceful sleep since being dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! 
> 
> This is my first time writing a Marvel fic, though I've been excited to for a while. I hope you all enjoyed it and look forward to the next chapter. Special thanks to my friend Merry who listens to me complain about mythological names and to Sundial-at-Night who read this over and make sure my writing didn't suck.
> 
> You can follow the progress of this fic at my Tumblr, SalParadiselost, or on my Twitter @KayOkay16. Both of them receive a daily word count update, and my general ramblings about how hard it is to write.
> 
> Again thank you all, and please consider leaving a kudos or comment. Your praise fuels my writing stamina.


End file.
